This is a guest post from Sam Mauzy.
There are a lot of websites on the Internet that get a ton of unique visitors every day. This is great for websites that don’t actually sell a service or a product. Professional business websites that try to attract customers via their website, though, need to get a high amount of viewers that convert to customers. This isn’t always an easy task, especially when you have a limited amount of time to grab your visitor’s attention before they click onto another site. Offering freebies is a perfect way to get people to your site and to eventually become customers. After all, everyone loves something for free!
1. eBooks: eBooks are an inexpensive freebie to offer visitors. They don’t cost much to publish and they’re a good way to get visitors interested in your business. With the advent of iPads and Nook books, everyone browses for new eBooks, and the free ones are always paid close attention to. This is especially useful if you work as a writer. For example, you can publish one or two chapters of your novel as a free eBook to get people interested in buying the entire publication.
2. Computer Software: So many people spend hours every day on their computer. Computer software can get pretty expensive. Offering free, high quality software, also called freeware, is an excellent way to get people interested in your computer-based company. The computer software can be offered for a limited time, such as 30 days, before expiring. If users like the software, they’ll be inclined to purchase the package when their free time period’s up.
3. Gift Certificates: Stores and restaurants can give out gift certificates to get people into their establishment. In order to not lose out on too much money, limit the use of the gift certificate. For example, if your boutique has sale items that you can’t get rid of, offer a gift certificate that can be used on sale items. If you’re a restaurant owner and barely have any business on Tuesday nights, offer a gift certificate for that specific time slot. You can also give gift certificates for specific items, like journals or draught beer.
4. Membership to Other Sites: Offering membership to another website may seem like it’s going against what you want to accomplish: getting people to stay on your own website. However, offering a free membership to a website that doesn’t compete with your business can actually help you. First of all, you’ll be giving your visitors something for free, which they’ll love. Secondly, the website you’re affiliated with should promote your site in return, driving your visitors up.
5. Audio Tracks: Musicians should always have one or two free tracks on their website. This is beneficial on a few different levels. The most obvious benefit is that people will automatically like your website, your band and you more if you give them something for free. It also gets more people to listen to your music. If they like what they hear, they may buy more tracks, purchase your album or come to see you at your next live show.
You may be thinking that as long as your business is selling a good product, you shouldn’t have to attract people by giving something away for free. Sometimes marketing is just as important as having quality products and services, though. There are some people who will take your freebie, genuinely like your product and make a purchase. There are other people, though, who will become a customer because you gave them a freebie. This is a subconscious act and many customers don’t even realize that the freebie is the reason why they’re attracted to your company in the first place. This doesn’t mean that they won’t become loyal customers, though. Even if companies that you compete with have better products or services, making friends out of customers is extremely important in the business world.
Sam Mauzy is a blogger and marketer who believes there are many ways to attract new customers to your website. It all starts with knowing the average site conversion rate for businesses in your industry and then learning ways to improve your site in order to compete.
Twitter: berget
Hi Sam,
Thank you so much for the guest post. I have just one free (and fairly old) ebook that I’m giving away. I have been thinking of creating something new for a long time, and I might do it soon
Twitter: thejackb
I am curious to find out what sort of experience people have producing ebooks and what kind of advice they would give.
Jack invites you to read.. 1 Foolproof Way To Become a Better Writer
Twitter: berget
Hi Jack,
I have only written one. And that’s the one I’m giving away to my subscribers. I believe it’s one of the best ways to get more subscribers and it’s a brilliant method to let people know more about you and what you do. People love free stuff, and it’s great for building relationships.
Twitter: thejackb
What software did you use to make it?
Jack invites you to read.. The Story of My Life Told Via Music
Twitter: rancorinfotech
Nice tips, This way you can show the quality and importance of your product or service. Once people get impressed then most of them would buy it.
Aasma invites you to read.. MLM Software Company India
Twitter: berget
Absolutely. It’s a great way to build relationships, and like you said, it’s a great way to impress people
Jens P. Berget invites you to read.. iPad for Business – What I Did to Fall in Love with it
Twitter: adriennesmith40
I agree Sam,
When you give value to your readers and are offering great content and services for free, the more enticing you become.
If the free stuff you share is really great, then they can only image what they can expect with a paid product or service. Now that’s the way to create a solid foundation for your business.
Wonderful share Sam and welcome to Jens place. You are definitely writing for a fabulous blog an audience I might add.
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Adrienne invites you to read.. Cool Facebook Timeline Ready Made Apps
Twitter: berget
That’s what I’ve been thinking. I always believe that paid stuff is a lot better than free. And if the free is really good, the paid stuff must be fantastic
Twitter: ZoeAlexanderUK
Hi Sam, great post and lovely to read. There is no doubt that what goes around comes around and so giving our unconditionally is definitely the route to success. We recently launched a new designer maternity brand on line and once we had established good rapports with a few key bloggers and a TV celebrity mum to be it was a case of giving out free products and letting them sing our praise rather than hard sell spam on all S.M media. A slow co-ordinated strategy with generosity is definitely the better approach!
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Twitter: berget
Hi Zoe,
That’s an interesting experience. I’d love to read more about this campaign, have you written about it? If you have, please send me a link (publish it as a reply to this comment).
Thanks a lot.
Jens P. Berget invites you to read.. Everything you can imagine is real
Well one thing which i have learned from my seniors is that presentation is everything.. they way you present matters in terms of your sales
thanks for the nice information
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Twitter: berget
Hey Robert,
I highly agree. I have read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and after that I really do believe that first impressions are even more important than I first thought. Presentations are very important, first impressions even more
Jens P. Berget invites you to read.. Suspense and Marketing – My Easter Experiment
This is a great idea to make your website a success! An example of how you would execute this is by making an “X Deal” with some companies. You would post their ad or write a great review for them and in exchange, they will give you GC’s or e-books for you to give to your visitors for free.
Twitter: berget
Exchanging favors is an awesome method. It’s a lot like guest posting, or adding your views in someones newsletter… we reach a completely new audience (and it’s free).
Thanks a lot for your comment.
Jens P. Berget invites you to read.. Free Kindle Books – How To Find Them
gift certificate is certainly the thing that can translate a visitor to a customer. However, I am not sure how ebook can help you turn things in your favor., It may be a great tactic to get some instant visitor but may not be that effective.
Twitter: berget
Gift certificates are awesome. I remember every detail about how it felt when I received my first gift certificate from one of my friends (Carolyn). It’s a brilliant way to marketing your business.
Jens P. Berget invites you to read.. The Real Power of Storytelling From Coca-Cola
Although ebook is very common now as a freebies for visitor, they still grab and take the freebie ebook because today readers are much
prefer to get information that they can apply for their business.
thanks for the tips Jen.
Twitter: berget
I absolutely agree. I grab several ebooks a week, just so I can learn
Hi Jens, this is truly great and you are actually right. Freebies will turn into customers is such a great idea.
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Twitter: berget
I completely agree Becca. I see ebooks everywhere, but if the title is compelling and it’s free, I still sign up for their newsletter
Twitter: berget
Thanks a lot.
Sam did a wonderful job
Twitter: berget
I wrote it in Microsoft word, and converted it to PDF. That was it. I haven’t added any type of graphics at all. And I hired a designer on Fiverr to create a cover for it.
Twitter: blogaks
Hi Sam,
I agree with you completely. When I gave my ebook free, which I was planning to sell initially, it has got me over 70+ subscribers. So much so that I am planning to keep it free forever ( not decided yet).
The purpose of giving free is to lower the buyer inertia and to enable the seller with a new audience. It makes a lot of sense when launching new services or when collecting email ids for further communication.
Great list, thank you
Ashvini invites you to read.. Overwhelmed by ever changing technology
Twitter: berget
Hey Ashvini,
That’s the same experience as me. I believe that we need a free ebook, that’s probably the easiest way to build a list of subscribers.
I haven’t read your book yet, so I’ll head over and see if I can find it
Twitter: twitter (creditdonkey)
Giving away a couple chapters of an ebook is an awesome way to capture and whet the appetites of the readers. If your ebook is really tantalizing and the reader couldn’t sleep without knowing how the story ended, you have already assured market not to mention the subscribers to your blog.
Amy Turnerr invites you to read.. Ebooks Explosion
Twitter: berget
That’s like a free trial. I have tested a lot of different service and software, where I have been using it for free for 14 days or 30 days, and after that, I just had to buy it, because of the experience I had during the free trial
Twitter: claire67
Very nice list of freebies that Will really turns your visitors in your websites as customer. I agree that this strategy is very effective.
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Twitter: berget
Thanks a lot for the feedback
Yes you are absolutely right and your points are very important and effective to turn our visitors into customers rapidly. The most important thing you discussed is “Gift Certificates” it can work very fast.
Twitter: berget
I agree. Giving away gift certificates is a brilliant way to get people to become customers
thank you for sharing these very helpful tips, it is going to help so many people including me. I really enjoyed reading this post thank you.
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Twitter: berget
Hey Andrew,
Thank you so much for the feedback. The only freebie I’ve been giving away is my ebook and it works great, so my experience is that we should keep doing this to attract visitors. But on the other hand, if you get more paying customers from giving away things for free… I’m not really sure
Twitter: techzyn
I agree with you Sam,
If you can provide great products for free, then the paid product or service you offer will be will have much more value. you can find many more customers for you paid products by offering then a sample through free product
thanks for a great post
great tips, giving value to your readers with constant good content is the secret ingrediant i think. Freebies are great, everybody wants something if its free
Twitter: papazeno
Hi, Sam. Great post here, very informative and spot on! Giving much value should beget much value, not unlike any other field of endeavor. Keep up the good work and hope to see more of your writing here.
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Twitter: papazeno
Hi, Jens. Joe here. Sam posted an excellent piece. Hope to see more of his work here. I wanted to let you know, since we last communicated, that my first blog post is up. You had asked me to let you know when it was ready. I appreciate your interest. When you have a chance, please take a look. I look forward to your feedback. Let me know what you think of the parallel I make of blogging and the Creation of the Universe.
How is your writing coming along? Any work on your novel yet? Writing can be a slow and lonely process, requiring much patience. The rewards can be well worth it, and you will be glad to have forged on to get it done. Stay well, Jens. Talk with you again, soon.
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Joe Lampo invites you to read.. Present at the Creation. FINALLY!
Twitter: berget
Hi Joe,
I’ll be over to your blog later today. Can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to
I agree about the post from Sam. We need to focus more on giving away free things to get attention, and to get people to understand what quality is
Thanks a lot Joe. See you soon.
Twitter: papazeno
Thanks, Jens. There’s no rush. When you have a moment is fine. I look forward to your comments. Keep up your good work!
Joe Lampo invites you to read.. Present at the Creation. FINALLY!
Customers always find their benefits and also require effective products or services, so it is good to attract them with some interesting method instead of any fixed price information. This is good to give them some chance to buy or download program with free offers.
Twitter: berget
Hey Brain,
Thanks a lot for the feedback
Twitter: wonderoftech
Hi Sam, Welcome to Jens’ place. Who doesn’t love free? That’s a great idea to help win subscribers and loyal customers.
I like Amy’s idea in the comments to give away a few chapters of an ebook. Then perhaps you could give the next few chapters in a future post to keep the readers coming back.
Thanks, Sam, for sharing your ideas with us and thank you, Jens, for having Sam here at your place!
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Twitter: central_e
Hi. Great post. I like that you addressed this, I mean who doesn’t love freebies. So freebies in essence, attract a lot of people. The catch here is that these freebies have to actually be worth it, useful to people. Great list here.
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Twitter: JacobSikais
I personally like trial or previews… If I want to buy some software, I want to try it first to make sure it is what I am looking for, as I hate the process of getting refunds… so offer me a trial… If i like it I buy it and recommend it to others
I’ve heard about giving away eBooks before but I didn’t ever think of audio tracks. I can see how that would provide a real, tempting point of difference considering many internet users now see ebooks are the ‘stock-standard’ giveaway. Would you have any advice on where to get some audio clips to giveaway or are they something that you kind of have to create yourself?